Kresnik said:
"The middle" of the industry (I guess I should've explained myself for people who didn't see that thread) is the area of titles that is neither AAA nor indie. Those titles that don't require a full film-style budget, nor are made by 2-3 people by self funding. Closer to AAA than indie, but still in-between (aka the middle). The examples Axum listed are exactly what I was talking about, but the examples you listed I would consider "the middle" as well. Banjo Kazooie & Viva Pinata are not titles that require massive budgets, and they're not titles that are going to sell 5m+ copies either. And by being more realistic with such titles - i.e. selling them at a reduced price, is something that I encourage. I just fear that games like Sly Cooper, like Viva Pinata, like Prince of Persia, are just getting closer and closer to disappearing as time goes on. I'd hate to see a Sony who only produced Gran Turismo, God of War & Uncharted and then loads of indie titles. I just have two other quick points to bring up. My first is the modern obssession with Metacritic. Is there something inherantly wrong with producing a game which ends up with a 77 score on Metacritic? To end up with a score in that region, it usually means that there's going to be quite a few people who thought it was 90+ game, and an equal number of people who maybe thought it was a less than 70 game. So who is wrong here? Is every single person who missed by the metacritic average wrong for either enjoying or disliking the game? My second was about the games you listed. I actually do salute Microsoft for producing Banjo Kazooie, Viva Pinata, Kameo. Those kind of games are the type that I have been listing for years saying "When I get an Xbox 360, I will be buying Banjo, Crackdown etc." (I have Viva Pinata on Steam). My problem is MS have neglected games like this since about 2008. Looking through a quick list of MS published games, 2008 was a really good year for that sort of stuff, and since 2008 there is literally only Crackdown 2 & Alan Wake that doesn't either fall into the AAA MS IP category (Fable, Halo, Gears, Forza) or casual titles (Kinectimals, Lips, Dance Central, Nike Training). If they pushed more things like Viva Pinata & Banjo, then I'd have picked up a 360 a very long time ago. |
I was talking about budget in my previous comment as well but I think we have more AA games released throughout the year than AAA games. Not from the big 3 but by EA, ACtivision, Ubisoft, and especially THQ although they are gone now.
As far as metacritic goes and budgets I do believe prices should follow them, not necessarily gamers but developers. I follow metacritic because if the game doesnt score well i wont buy it because $60 is a lot for a mediocre game. AA games should be priced cheaper than AAA games. and independent games should be cheaper than AA games. It makes no sense for a AA game to be released for a full priced game of $60. in this case they charged $40 which is good. but I want to see every game priced according to budgets
